Dealer's Choice
by bananajan
Summary: Games get serious with Death playing


"Nothing is a matter of life and death except life and death." -Angela Carter

Our story begins before the world began. Impossible as it is to start before the beginning, but necessary nonetheless. This is the story set before Time was born and Fate started her manipulations as Chaos would cackle with glee.

You see, Life and Death were in love. In their case, opposites did attract. It was difficult as many believed them to be ill-suited for each other. They would quite often comment and Fate, in particular, reveled in sprinkling doubt between the two. Death was hit the hardest by the criticism and would spend days despondent trying to distance herself from her love. Life, had on the other hand, had began gifting countless souls to Death.

Gifts such as these that she would keep with her forever.

It was an odd relationship, one that even flabbergasted the stars above. They believed that such love that these two held for each other would upset the natural balance of things. Balance after all was meant to be with Life on one side, Death cast aside on the other.

One star in particular believed that such a delicate balance could not be toyed with and convinced the others and thus ordered Life and Death to a new world where they would be bound to be apart from each other.

The stars created Mother Earth and thus bound Life and Death to its land with an order to watch over its inhabitants.

Life thrived on Mother Earth. He cared for it's children and everything on it.

Death, on the other hand, resented being tied to such a world. Death was never meant to be caged and grew farther and farther apart from her beloved.

Time was soon born and as Time passed, change happened.

Life knew that no creature was meant to stay with him eternity and as they grew old, their lives at the end, Life wanted to be sure that they would be cared for. Thinking of Death, He decided to gift them to Death placing them under her care.

Life continued to give and Death continued to take and Death grew bored and tired of the constant passing of the creatures. It seemed as though the Life's blessings were now Death's curse.

From the start, Death never understood why Life seemed to care so much about these beings who were so fragile and never lasted very long in her opinion. It seemed pointless for Life to get so involved with such fleeting, temporary thing.

Death took to roaming the lands her beloved watched over, protected and cared for.

It became a constant cycle for Life and Death and one day, Fate had decided to intervene by gifting some of Life's creatures with special abilities. Fate said they were there to spice things up between them as these special humans had Magic—much to Death's chagrin and Life's delight.

Death had been weary of the power they held. They were still humans, and humans were ultimately selfish creatures. They didn't understand why and how things came to be.

Life was excited by them and doted on their very existence by blessing them with long lives. With their lifespans significantly longer, Life treasured them as they stayed with him throughout many, many years.

The magicals held a special connection to Life himself.

Becoming more and more distant as Mother Earth grew bigger and bigger as Life got busier looking over it's growing population.

Death felt neglected and more lonely than she ever felt. Her collected souls gave her little comfort. She envied the magicals that her beloved seemed to care for so much.

Death held no love for the magicals that enraptured Life's attention and soon started to believe that if she took more and more people out of the world, nothing would hold Life back from her.

Plotting and planning, she decided to use certain tricks to gain their lives and thus steal Life back, placing him within her grasp. Humans, even the magicals were easy to turn against one another. It didn't take much for them to raise war with another for some petty reason. Without having such a burden, Life would be free from his duty and could be once again reunited with Death.

After all what was Life without Death?

Then one day, Death met the three brothers.

[Excerpt from J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beetle and Bard- The Tale of Three Brothers]

There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water. They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure.

And Death spoke to them. She was angry that she had been cheated out of three new victims, for travelers usually drowned in the river. But Death was cunning. She pretended to congratulate the three brothers upon their magic, and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade her.

So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death! So Death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the oldest brother.

Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from Death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead.

And then Death asked the third and youngest brother what he would like. The youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers, and he did not trust Death. So he asked for something that would enable him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death. And Death, most unwillingly, handed over her own Cloak of Invisibility.

Then Death stood aside and allowed the three brothers to continue on their way and they did so, talking with wonder of the adventure they had had, and admiring Death's gifts.

In due course the brothers separated, each for his own destination.

The first brother travelled on for a week or more, and reaching a distant village, he sought out a fellow wizard with whom he had a quarrel. Naturally, with the Elder Wand as his weapon, he could not fail to win the duel that followed. Leaving his enemy dead upon the floor, the oldest brother proceeded to an inn, where he boasted loudly of the powerful wand he had snatched from Death herself, and of how it made him invincible.

That very night, another wizard crept upon the oldest brother as he lay, wine-sodden, upon his bed. The thief took the wand and, for good measure, slit the oldest brother's throat.

And so Death took the first brother for her own.

Meanwhile, the second brother journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone. Here he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand. To his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry before her untimely death appeared at once before him.

Yet she was silent and cold, separated from him as though by a veil. Though she had returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered. Finally, the second brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself so as truly to join her.

And so Death took the second brother for her own.

But though Death searched for the third brother for many years, she was never able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with her gladly, and departed from Life.

[End of Excerpt]

Angered and jealous from the actions Death took and resentful that the first gifts Death gave was not to him but to his favored, he cursed Death.

He decided to curse Death's gifts in such a way that whomever possessed the all three gifts Death herself bestowed, would become her Master.

Bitter at first that Life sought to control her in such a way, Death parted ways from Life. To occupy her time, she sought out her gifts. They travelled, they destroyed, and they changed hands as time continued on; the history quite bloody. She kept a watchful eye over their whereabouts throughout the years. The wand in particular created a path so bloodstained it was hardly difficult to track.

No one, however, had ever had all three of the gifts together. She made certain of that. No one was above Death. A fact that she would gleefully lord over Earth's creatures.

Soon The Elder Wand, The Resurrection Stone, and The Invisibility Cloak became nothing but fiction—a tale told to entertain children. A tale, which in reality, was anything but one. A few souls believed in them so much they began quests to obtain what was dubbed the Deathly Hallows.

Few came close to acquiring them all, but never succeeded.

Enjoying the turmoil so much that Death left the hallows among the magicals, even though she could have claimed them back.

Death had never really been bound by any rules as Life believed her to be, and had been delusional to believe that he could force Death to do anything she didn't wish. Death was an untouchable force no one could dare to understand, tame, or convince.

Death, though, was amused as she watched the fools who thought themselves powerful, worthy of such gifts she bestowed, were destroyed by each other. She was especially delighted by the fact that the curse that Life cast on her gifts were actually the very thing that made his precious mortals, less mortal. Each creature thinking themselves to be worthy but never realizing that they could never be able to hold such a title as grand as Master of Death.

Or that was so, until Harry Potter.

She, of course, knew of the boy. Change talked about him constantly and Fate in particular enjoyed playing with the boy ever so much. Death heard Life upset over how little he got to live, how often he suffered.

She never really took any real notice of Harry until that moment; the moment before the boy died.

Death had, obviously, known about the war that the mortals insisted on having with each other. Wars meant very little to her, only more work harvesting souls. It was tedious to be needed so much, that she would often deputize a few of her pets to reap for her.

Once the boy had all three items, Death knew he was special.

When the boy tried to destroy them, Death knew he was hers.

Death knew that it wasn't the last time he would feel Death's touch as she had chosen her own master.

Harry just hadn't known it yet.


End file.
